Volume I: Eco-Theology, Spirituality, and Environmental Ethics

Teaching Adab in an Age of Algorithms: Malay Islamic Ecotheology and Cultural Resilience in a Multipolar Era

  • Imroatus Sholihah UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung, Indonesia
  • Supiana UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung, Indonesia

Keywords

adab; algorithmic culture; Malay Islamic ecotheology; cultural resilience; Muslim family education.

Abstract

Children today learn, play, and form friendships in spaces shaped by algorithms. Platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and online games are no longer merely places of entertainment. Through their recommendation systems, they quietly steer what children attend to, what they come to like, and how they distinguish right from wrong. This matters in a multipolar era, in which competing global values and cultural influences contend for the same young audiences. For Malay Muslim families, this raises a pressing question: how is adab, the heart of Islamic upbringing, to be transmitted when so much of a child’s day is curated by a machine? This study pursues three aims. First, it examines the difficulties of nurturing adab within an algorithmic culture. Second, it draws on Malay Islamic ecotheology as a living source of cultural resilience. Third, it reconsiders what family education can and should be when digital disruption keeps shifting the ground beneath our feet. The research adopts a qualitative approach, combining library research with limited digital observation. Attention is directed to the everyday digital spaces children actually move through: social media feeds, online gaming worlds, and the parenting conversations Muslim families hold in online communities. The material was read through thematic and interpretive analysis, guided throughout by an Islamic education perspective. The findings point to something easily missed. Algorithms act as hidden moral educators. Without anyone deciding it, they gradually assume part of the teaching role that once belonged to parents. Yet the study also finds grounds for hope. The values carried within Malay Islamic ecotheology, namely adab, trustworthiness (amanah), balance (mizan), and shared communal responsibility, can be renewed as anchors that help children remain grounded in digital spaces. On this basis, the paper proposes Malay Islamic Ecotheological Parenting: a single framework bringing together adab education, algorithmic literacy, and cultural resilience for a multipolar age.

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